Friday, November 8, 2013

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: DON'T FORGET US BACK HERE

Continuing our look at Lumen Gentium paragraph 50

Growing up we heard stories about our grandparents coming to
the United States from the “old country.”Though things have changed dramatically since then, back in “the day”
the little mountain village from which they came was rather cut off from the
rest of the world.There were no phone
lines, electricity, nor indoor plumbing.The priest only came to the remote village a few times a year for Mass
both because it was so remote and because there were so few people.

So one set of grandparents came over to the “Promised
Land.”During the Second World War, news
reached the family in the U.S. via snail mail that there was a family member
ailing and they needed penicillin.The
further problem was that the hospital would only give the penicillin to our cousin
if enough was sent for everyone.So, my
grandparents were able to obtain the needed medicine here in the U.S. and ship
it back and bring healing to our cousin as well as others.

Now imagine that (remembering that all analogies limp) as
being a metaphor for our faith journey.We who are in this life struggle as best we can in Christ with our eyes
firmly set on the new life waiting for us in the Promised Land.Some of us have already made the trip.And though we must do
without the physical presence of those brothers and sisters, we are somehow
still united in Christ and in His one Body.We can still get messages to them.But unlike a letter we might send by ship, these missives are called
prayer.Those already passed over are
before the throne and still make intercession with us and in such a manner are
able to send back help if you will.They
are of our merry band who are already close to the warming fire.But we are not divided between us and them;
we are one and we work together to bring the whole Body into holiness.

1 comment:

Grant
said...

"But we are not divided between us and them; we are one and we work together to bring the whole Body into holiness."

I don't know what I imagine the dearly departed are doing when no one is praying for their intercession... sitting on a heavenly beach sipping pina coladas until they're paged. I never really thought that they're praying all the time - doing their part from where they are while we do our part here. Thanks as always for an interesting thought.

WEEKLY SCHEDULE

MONDAY - Monday Diary: A day in the life of a priest.TUESDAY - Quote Tuesday: A post of an interesting quote along with various other things sitting on my computer from the past week such as links, polls, pictures, videos, or games.WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY - Thoughts for your consideration either from me or guest bloggers.FRIDAY - Friday Popourri - A grab bag of regular topics from symbolism to vocation stories.